Collierville's only unsolved homicide eludes police, haunts family

Collierville Fire Department Battalion Chief Rickey Walker tallks about the shooting death of his father George T. Walker, Collierville's first African-American police officer and first African-American alderman, who was shot in his store in December 2001. His murder is the town's only unsolved homicide.(Photo: Jim Weber/The Commercial Appeal)Buy Photo

Rickey Walker was having dinner in Memphis with his family when he got the news that his father had been shot inside the family's small grocery store on West Street in Collierville.

Rickey, a battalion chief with Collierville Fire Department, said his mother was, as usual, at Sunday night church services.

It was a shooting, he said, that didn't make sense.

Nobody gets shot in Collierville. And certainly not his father.

Born in Fayette County, George T. Walker had been a U.S. Army sergeant who served in Vietnam. In 1965, he became Collierville's first African-American police officer and would later become the town's first African-American alderman. He was a retired director of transportation for Shelby County Schools.

The shooting of George T. Walker, Collierville's first African-American police officer and first African-American alderman, shot and killed in his Collierville store in December 2001, is the town's only unsolved homicide.(Photo: file)

Everybody knew him. He was the person people in the African-American community turned to for help with just about everything from securing a home or a job, to maneuvering through the criminal justice system.

But his shooting death on Dec. 9, 2001, has given George T. Walker another distinction.

His is the town's only unsolved homicide.

Collierville then and now

At 55, Rickey, the ninth in a family of 10 children, has seen his hometown grow to a population that now exceeds 50,000 people.

Yet, for him it's still a very small town. Standing near the building where his father was fatally wounded, the driver of nearly every car that pulls up to the stop sign waves to get Rickey's attention and calls out to him by name.

And he knows them too.

"How can this case not be solved?" said Rickey, who has been with the CFD for 33 years.

Rickey's father built the store at 191 West St., not far from U.S. Highway 72, in 1966. George T. Walker & Sons grocery store was one of a kind in the town's black community. The building has since been converted to a residential duplex.

Although George Walker, 75, was shot in the stomach, he was able to call 911 and told investigators that a man wearing a ski mask tried to rob him. He was airlifted to Memphis and died at the hospital.

The shooting was a shock. The death unexpected.

But the family believed the perpetrator would be found quickly.

"Our entire family felt that. Because my dad didn't have any enemies," Rickey said. "We just knew that people in the community would step up and say, 'No, we can't let Mr. George's death go unsolved.'"

Required reading

For every new member of the Collierville Police Department's criminal investigations division, the mountain of documents associated with the George Walker case — the boxes and boxes of interviews, reports and notes — is mandatory reading, said Lt. Scott Young.

Young was assigned to the case in 2015, and it’s never far from his thoughts. Someone has worked the case nonstop since the night it happened.

"Homicides never close. They never get inactivated. They never go away. There is no statute of limitations on homicide. With some of your bigger departments, homicides have cold case divisions, where homicides go when there's nothing more to investigate," Young said. "We don’t have that because with our only homicide case, we have kept it open and active since Dec. 9, 2001."

Young won't share details about what they've learned, whom they've talked to or whom they might suspect.

"At this point we don’t have enough information to bring a successful charge and closure in this investigation," he said.

As more time passes, there is always the possibility that witnesses or suspects leave the community or die.

That won't matter, Young said.

"Even though we wouldn't be able to bring them to justice on the crime, at least we would be able to hopefully bring closure to the family," he said. "But someone out there, I truly believe, has the information we need to help close this case and bring both justice and closure to the case. We just need that person to step forward and provide us with the missing piece of the puzzle."

'It's not a mystery'

On Dec. 9, 2004 — the third anniversary of the shooting — George Walker's widow, Adell Walker, was quoted in a story in The Commercial Appeal.

"It's just my opinion," she said of her views — her husband had confronted someone or a group of people about their illegal drugs near the store. "That young man was angry with George," she said.

Rickey's brother, Michael Walker, agreed with his mother.

"It's not a mystery, not in this small town," Michael said.

Then, family members believed they had a viable suspect.

Even now, Rickey said, the same names are mentioned by different people at different times to him and various members of his family.

"We have ideas," he said. "There is no guarantee, but so many different people have called the family, different members of the family, and said the same thing at different times."

And to their knowledge, the person they believe is responsible is still in Shelby County.

"But as a family we can't go and say, 'Arrest John Doe and Mary Jane,'" Rickey said.

He wants to know why the people who keep dropping names to them won't contact the police.

"You're just as guilty as the driver for the guy who robs the bank," Rickey said.

One thing left undone

Homicides are rare in Collierville. The most recent, in 2015 and 2008, were both ruled to be justified and no charges were filed.

That's why retiring police Chief Larry Goodwin is disappointed that he'll leave the department with this case still unsolved.

"I would love to be able to stand up in front of the mayor and board and the Walker family and tell them we've made an arrest in this case," said Goodwin, who retires effective July 1 after 26 years with the Memphis Police Department and 22 years in Collierville.

He remembers getting the call, hours after the shooting.

George Walker was a friend and a fellow law enforcement officer and Rickey Walker is a friend as well, Goodwin said.

"I hated it. I hated it happened to somebody who had done so much," he said. "It was terrible. And everybody looked to us to solve it. To solve it right away."

Instead, it has taken more than 16 years.

"It's not because we didn't try," he said. "I have confidence that they'll solve it eventually. They will."

This killing won't be forgotten

There is still a $20,000 reward through Collierville Crime Stoppers for information in this case.

And while Collierville's investigators have pledged that this case will never go cold, Rickey doesn't intend for that to happen either.

"I talk to the police department all the time. And I let them know that I have a pledge to myself, to my family that I'm going to hold the Collierville Police Department responsible for solving this case. I don't care if it's 50 or 100 years," Rickey said. "If I die, somebody is going to pick up the pieces."